Ex-McGruff player gets prison for pot farm, guns

HOUSTON—A Houston man who once portrayed McGruff the Crime Dog has shown his commitment to crime fighting apparently wasn't very deep.

John R. Morales was sentenced this week to 16 years and three months in federal prison on drug and weapons charges after police found more than 1,000 marijuana plants and 27 weapons, including grenade launchers, at two indoor farms.

Morales wore the McGruff costume for the Harris County Sheriff's Association in the late 1990s.

A real crime dog—the drug-sniffing variety—detected pot plans in Morales' trunk after he was stopped for speeding in Galveston in 2011. Authorities say officers found a clipboard with maps to the indoor farms.

Not all kids who play baseball are uniformed with fancy script across their chests, traveling to $1,000 instructional camps and drilled how to properly hit the cut-off man. Some kids just play to play.